Design of a Novel Barrier-Well Asymmetric Spacer Layer Tunnel Diodes for Implantable Rectenna Circuits

This work presents an analysis and design of the two barrier-quantum well asymmetric spacer tunnel layer (QW-ASPAT) diodes for implantable rectenna circuits application. The RF and DC characteristic of a 10×10μm2 QW-ASPAT devices based on GaAs and In0.53Ga0.47As platform was simulated and extracted by using SILVACO atlas software. The highest extracted curvature coefficient, kv value of the both QW-ASPAT devices at zero bias was about 33V-1 compared with the standard structure GaAs/InGaAs was about 13V-1. The effects of changing in the thickness of the thin AlAs-barrier, the well width, and the spacer layer are fully investigated on the non-linear relationship between current and voltage of these diodes. A CV simulation was carried out, and it was found that the addition of the quantum-well layer between spacers and barrier reduced the junction capacitance of the QW-ASPAT device when compared with standard devices. The cut-off frequency of the proposed QW-GaAs and QW-InGaAs devices are 26GHz and 46GHz respectively. Finally, we conclude that the QW-ASPAT device is the best structure and can be used for microwave rectifiers in the miniaturized integrated rectenna systems.